Mekelle፡ 21 September 2024 (Tigray Herald)
Breaking Free: Tigray’s Path to Independence Amid Ethiopia’s Collapse Under Abiy Ahmed.
Over the course of the last years, the political trajectory of Ethiopia under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed has assumed an increasingly dangerous and destabilizing direction. Abiy, once hailed as a reformist leader and peacemaker by majority of Ethiopians and the International Community proved himself a war monger whose ambitions seemed steered not by economic considerations nor the well-being of the nation, but through a desire for power, prestige, and distraction from internal failures. The repercussions of his frivolous policies managed to engulf the nation in chaos, alienating Ethiopia from its neighbors and setting it up for regional conflict. From the Tigrayan perspective adding the genocidal war against us to the above, Tigray’s path—must be different from this dangerous course. Abiy’s behavior through the genocidal war has made crystal clear that the future of Tigray lies in independence and self-determination. The time is now ripe.
Abiy Ahmed’s Aggression and the Quest for a Red Sea Port
The basis of Abiy’s warmongering has been his obsession with gaining access to the Red Sea. This
ambition is definitely not propelled by pure economic concerns but by external pressures and his ambition to be seen as the “King” who “restored” Ethiopia’s access to the sea despite past regimes. It is no secret that the United Arab Emirates yields a great deal of influence over Ethiopia’s foreign policy considering its destructive work in the Horn of Africa and its support in the genocidal war on Tigray. Abiy’s MoU with Somaliland—a self-declared autonomous region seeking recognition as an independent state—had the motives of not simply aiding Somaliland in its goals of independence but to use the region for its ports and geopolitical leveraging.
This aggressive posture has already pitted Ethiopia against its neighbours Eritrea and Somalia. Eritrea-which eagerly participated in the genocidal war against Tigray-is now facing Abiy’s attempt to assert claims over the Red Sea, if need be by force. Asmara is unlikely to stand idly by. Somalia, for its part, has also opposed Abiy’s dealings with Somaliland.
Another flashpoint of regional tension is represented by the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, a project initiated under the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Whereas Meles pursued the dam project with a strategic balance of diplomacy and legal consideration, Abiy has been less measured. Complete disregard for international norms and insistence on forging ahead before a comprehensive agreement with the downstream countries, especially Egypt, had reached further escalated tensions. Egypt relies on the Nile for nearly all of its freshwater and views this dam as an existential threat; its firm opposition to the actions of Ethiopia is well known.
Though the dam project was inherited, Abiy’s management of it has alienated Egypt and further isolated Ethiopia internationally. Egypt’s increasingly close alliances with Somalia and Eritrea are part of a regional realignment against Ethiopia. Abiy’s seeming inability or unwillingness to navigate these complex diplomatic waters suggests a leader more concerned with deflecting attention from his domestic failings than in securing long-term peace and stability for his country.
Internal Instability: The Price of Military Adventure
Domestically, the country is in turmoil. The 2020 genocidal war against Tigray has laid the region to waste and precipitated one of the worst humanitarian crises that Africa has seen in recent times. Other than this genocidal war in Tigray, Abiy’s government also faces an armed backlash from the Oromo Liberation Army, commonly called OLA, and the Fano militia-an Amhara paramilitary force. All of these military campaigns have taken their toll, with runaway inflation and recent international pressure to liberalize the economy of Ethiopia, and they all seem to push the country toward complete collapse.
Abiy’s focus on military and aesthetic projects at the expense of Ethiopians-who face prices, unemployment, and the shortages of basic goods-has cost him his popularity among the population. The centralization of the Prosperity Party has further polarized the different ethnic groups of Ethiopia in an effort to bring it all under one command in Addis Ababa. In essence, he has lost control of the periphery. For the people of Tigray-who have borne the brunt of Abiy’s genocidal war-the question is no longer whether Ethiopia can be saved but whether Tigray should remain part of a failing empire.
Ethiopia’s Neighbors Turn Against Abiy
The rate at which Ethiopia is being diplomatically isolated is now very visible. Eritrea, an otherwise ally of the Abiy government in committing genocide against Tigray, increasingly identifies with Egypt and Somalia. The bilateral security agreement signed between Somalia and Egypt against a background of escalating tensions over the GERD and the Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland marked a new phase in the regional power game. Meanwhile, that makes Ethiopia’s position worse, and with Eritrea increasingly cozying up to them, the prospect of a united front against Addis Ababa more feasible.
The international community has started to shun Abiy as well. The UAE is still a premier supporter of his regime, but there is only so much even such a powerful ally can do in the face of mushrooming instability. The European Union-the largest trading partner with Ethiopia in the Horn-is increasingly wary of Abiy’s authoritarian streak and the humanitarian crisis in Tigray. The United States has refused to reinstate the AGOA. Continued internal conflict and economic mismanagement will continue to isolate Ethiopia, with disastrous results for its citizens.
The Case for Tigrayan Independence
The clearest lessons in recent years are that the Ethiopian empire is unsustainable and continued association with it will only bring additional suffering to Tigray. The Tigrayan people, who have been made to suffer under genocide, famine, and displacement, must chart a new course. Independence is not only the wisest choice but the only viable one for the survival and prosperity of Tigray.
The Ethiopia that exists today is a contrived contraption – an amalgamation of nations, nationalities, and peoples held together by imperial conquest and maintained through decades of autocratic rule. A unified Ethiopian state has always been just that – a dream. In real terms, the empire of Ethiopia has represented a prison for the various peoples who live within its borders, from the Oromo to the Sidama to the Tigrayans.
The exploitation of Tigray’s resources by the central government and the latter’s efforts at erasing Tigray’s unique culture and history have driven the point home that the Tigrayan people will have absolutely nothing to gain by being in Ethiopia.
It is Tigray that has a resource and historical basis on which to establish a proud and prosperous independent state. As Alemseged Abbay, PhD termed it – the “primordial preconditions” of statehood-history of ancient civilization, language, culture, resistance -make Tigray a natural candidate for independence. Free from the clutches of the Ethiopian empire, Tigray would control its own resources, preserve its heritage, and find a way to go its own way in the world.
TPLF: Internal Battles and the Future of Tigrayan Nationalism
The road to independence is not without its challenges for Tigray. The TPLF, once spearheading the struggle against the Derg regime is disunited. Its original Marxist-Leninist roots have rendered the TPLF basically hostile to nationalist sentiments for a long period of time. For many in the rank and file of the TDF, especially during the genocidal war, independence was basically the highest possible aspiration. So was the TPLF’s mobilization strategy during the struggle against the Derg. However, TPLF leadership remained relentless in strict adherence to ideological class struggle over national liberation. Even in the so-called reformist Tigray Interim Regional Administration, the emphasis remains lacking on Tigray’s right to self-determination.
If Tigray is ever to be independent, it needs leadership ready and willing to wear the mantel of nationalism and put the interests of the Tigrayan people above everything else. During its Addis Ababa years, the leadership of TPLF seemed more committed to holding together the Ethiopian state than securing a decent future for Tigray. It is this void in nationalist leadership that needs to be filled if Tigray were to ever free itself from Ethiopia, with a view to establishing an independent, prosperous state.
Conclusion: A New Era for Tigray
The implosion of the Ethiopian empire is a fact. Under Abiy Ahmed’s careless leadership, Ethiopia became a failed state-economically weakened, diplomatically isolated, and internally divided. It is in this crisis that now afflicts the whole country that Tigray must see as an opportunity for its liberation from the suffocating centralism of the Ethiopian state and to forge another future of self-determination.
And it is now time for the Tigrayan people, who have faced marginalization and state-sponsored genocide, to exert this moment to enforce our right to independence.
